First Herm (Herm I) (1983)

Edward Allington's Herm I (1983) and Herm II (1983), or First Herm and Second Herm, as The Hepworth Wakefield are now calling them, portray the incorporation of kitsch, such as plastic fruits and pebbles, and stem from an observation of varying cultural influences upon contemporary art practice. Allington was renowned for his involvement in the New British Sculpture movement in the 1980s. He made a number of Herm pieces that present totemic arrangements of everyday objects alluding to the tradition of sculptural monuments. A precarious arrangement of vivid apples and bananas in the First Herm cleverly challenges the notion of stone as a traditional material for sculpture whilst the Second Herm is a similar arrangement of large pebble but made in plastic that reference the 'cairn' stone structures placed by walkers on top of hills and mountains - itself a reference to a non-monumental architecture.

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